Formula One's new order have another chance to hammer home their supremacy this weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix, the fourth round of this year's topsy-turvy world championship.
After the three season-opening races in Australia, Malaysia and China, the new Brawn GP team leads the way ahead of Red Bull, who collected their maiden victory last Sunday in Shanghai, while the 'establishment' are puffing in pursuit. In the drivers' championship, Jenson Button is on top ahead of his Brawn team-mate Rubens Barrichello, with 21-year-old Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull third.
Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton, struggling to find some form and repair his reputation after a controversial start to the season, has yet to finish on the podium and, like his McLaren Mercedes team-mate Heikki Kovalainen and both Ferrari drivers, has been unable to mount a challenge for victory.
As a result, the dominant duo of teams in recent years, McLaren and Ferrari, are out of the picture at the head of the title-race with the Italian team, in particular, languishing as they battle to recover from their worst start to a season since 1981.
"It's refreshing to have a new order on the grid, even if it is not us who has benefited," said BMW Sauber boss Mario Theissen.
"But (Renault chief) Flavio Briatore was right to say that a lot of time and money is going to be spent before all the teams are playing on the same playground again.
"That is something that is not good for the sport. Sport is only interesting and exciting if all the players play by the same rules. We have to get back to this as soon as possible."
Theissen spoke this week following last weekend's race in Shanghai where Briatore criticised strongly the outcome of the International Motoring Federation (FIA) International Court of Appeal hearing that ruled 'double decker' diffusers were legal this season.
Briatore said that the sport had lost credibility as a result of the ruling and mocked the two Brawn drivers' ability in an outburst that led to a wickedly ironic response from Brawn's eponymous team chief Ross Brawn.
He also suggested that Brawn should be deprived of their income from television rights.
Brawn declined to comment, but said: "I think it might be time to change the medication."
Theissen refused to be drawn into the row on the eve of this weekend's race in Bahrain, but said his team - one of those with a big budget in order to respond to such setbacks - would have its own 'double diffuser' package ready for the fifth race in Barcelona next month.
"We have a package underway for Barcelona," he said.
"There's not much for Bahrain, but for Barcelona we will have an upgrade. We are still developing the package. It will affect the aerodynamics, but I'm not sure how far we can go with the diffuser and what would be included."
While BMW, in common with McLaren, Ferrari, Renault and the rest, work to catch the front-runners, championship leader Button declared himself delighted to be racing in Bahrain this week.
He said: "Bahrain is always one of my favourite races on the calendar as I love the country and the circuit has some great fast flowing sections that really suit my driving style -- and allow you to push the car to its limits.
"It's a good circuit for overtaking, particularly at Turn One, after the long straight, where you brake very hard from over 300 kph in seventh gear down to first gear."
Brawn, who could be in a commanding position after this weekend's race if he and his team are able to dominate again, was in a contrasting state of mind to Hamilton, who conceded that last Sunday's race was one of the toughest of his career.
He said: "I love driving in the rain, but I definitely didn't drive as well as I could on Sunday. Afterwards, people were congratulating me on a good performance, but overall I was a bit dissatisfied with my race.
"I wanted to do better. It was good for the team to get both cars into the points, but I felt that I should have done better.
"We should have a few new components in Bahrain so I hope we'll continue with our progress. As long as we are moving forwards, it makes it all the more worthwhile and rewarding."
(AFP via China Daily April 24, 2009)
